Friday, January 25, 2013

A pair of Republican lawmakers in Mississippi have proposed a bill to
keep the federal government in its place, and laying out a plan to
create a Joint Legislative Committee on the Neutralization of Federal
Law, which would — well maybe you can already start to guess what the
committee would do.

The bill, known as the Mississippi Balance of Powers Act,
was authored by state Rep. Gary Chism (R), chairman of the House
Insurance Committee, and Rep. Jeff Smith (R), chairman of the House Ways
and Means Committee. Earlier this week, the bill was referred to the
House Constitution Committee.

The neutralization committee called for in the bill would enforce “a
constitutional balance of powers,” and would be made up of the
lieutenant governor, six members of the state Senate appointed by the
lieutenant governor, the speaker of the state House of Representatives
or his designee and six members of the House of Representatives
appointed by the speaker. The committee will be allowed to review “any
and all existing federal statutes, mandates and executive orders for the
purpose of determining their constitutionality.” Any measure that is
found to be “beyond the scope and power assigned to the federal
government under Article 1 of the United States Constitution or in
direct violation of the Mississippi Constitution of 1890” may be
recommended for neutralization by the simple majority vote of each house
of the Mississippi State Legislature.

“If the Mississippi State Legislature votes by simple majority to
neutralize any federal statute, mandate or executive order on the
grounds of its lack of proper constitutionality, then the state and its
citizens shall not recognize or be obligated to live under the statute,
mandate or executive order,” the bill reads.

"Nope, we don't want to follow the rules of your federal government, and we've decided that we're just not going to enforce the bits we don't like. Do something about it. We dare you."

Like I keep saying, South Carolina tried this about 175 years ago. Didn't work out so great for them or the country, either.

Much like with Mitt Romney, it seems that Benjamin Netanyahu had no idea
of the electoral drubbing headed his way, despite the fact that
independent pollsters very much did see it coming. Yes, you guessed it:
Netanyahu’s pollsters were apparently skewing his poll data.

On Sunday Netanyahu was still convinced his party would obtain 36-37
Knesset seats. While most of the experienced pollsters like Camil Fuchs,
Dr. Mina Tzemach and Rafi Smith discerned Likud-Beiteinu’s slide toward
30 seats, Netanyahu and his partner Avigdor Lieberman were intoxicated
by groundless figures with at best a flimsy connection to reality.

Team Bibi got 31 of 60 Knesset seats, just barely a majority...if they can keep it together. What goes around, comes around, man. Can't say I'm surprised, after all, Bibi thought it would be a good idea to back Mitt Romney...

"We are working together to find an amenable background-check proposal," a Kirk staffer told The Hill on Thursday afternoon.

Proposals to increase background checks are widely popular with the
public, according to polls, and are the least controversial of a number
of gun-control measures proposed by President Obama. But gun-control
legislation has gotten off to a rocky start because of resistance from
Republicans and some red-state Democrats.

Kirk and Manchin, close
friends who represent states that normally elect members from their
opposite parties, could be crucial to any gun-control debate. Kirk has
long backed an assault-weapons ban and is one of the most pro-gun
control Republican senators. Manchin, a lifetime member of the National
Rifle Association, has also emerged as a key player in the current
gun-control debate. He's called for a wide-ranging discussion on how to
cut down on gun violence, including new firearm restrictions, and on
Thursday morning came out in favor of increased background checks.

Could we actually be seeing reasonable, actual, bipartisan legislation as intended? Don't get your hopes up. Republicans will still look to block the measure in the Senate, and I doubt any gun control measures will again, even get a vote in the House. It's a definite way for Kirk and Manchin to get bipartisan cred without anything actually having to happen.

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With Republicans controlling the House and Senate and the Trump Regime now in charge of the Executive, there's still a crumbling global economy imperiling the world, rising nationalism and deadly racism across Europe and Asia, a seemingly endless war against terror, a federal government nobody trusts or believes in, global climate change putting us on the brink of destruction and a Village media that barely does its job on even the best day.

Needless to say there's a lot of Stupid out there when we need solutions. Dangerous levels of Stupid.

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